ABSTRACT
In Book II of The Republic Plato reports the well-known story of Gyges’ ring. Gyges, a lowly shepherd, takes his flock into a cave and there finds a corpse wearing a beautiful ring that he subsequently steals. While talking with other shepherds, he fidgets with his fingers and turning the stone of the ring became invisible. Aware of his new-found possibilities, he uses the ring’s powers to seduce the king’s wife and take over the kingdom. In the Platonic dialogue that follows, Socrates’ interlocutor, Glaucon, argues that any sane person would do the same as Gyges. The story throws into sharp relief the value of a life lived justly where one is at peace with oneself – but with little reward – as opposed to one that is lived ignobly while accruing wealth and power and (what seems at least to be) happiness. Is there a necessary relation between the flourishing life and an ethically praiseworthy one? In a number of respects, it will be argued, the myth of Gyges’ ring is directly analogous to the problem of doping in elite sports.
